In the early hours of October 23, 2025, the city of Khartoum—the battered capital of Sudan—was again jolted awake by the buzz and thud of drone attacks. For the third consecutive day, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) targeted both the city and its main airport, intensifying a conflict that has already brought the nation to its knees. Eyewitnesses described the chilling scene: "At 4:00 am, I heard the sound of two drones passing above us," one resident told AFP, noting the drones were headed for military facilities. Another reported seeing them streak toward the airport, followed by the sound of explosions.
The RSF, once allied with Sudan’s military but now its bitter adversary, has ramped up pressure on the armed forces as the civil war grinds into its third year. The Sudanese military, for its part, intercepted the drones before they could inflict damage, according to officials who spoke anonymously due to the sensitivity of the situation. Yet, as of Thursday evening, neither the RSF nor the Sudanese army had issued public statements about the incident—a silence that has become all too familiar in this drawn-out conflict.
The timing of the attacks was particularly jarring. Just a day earlier, on October 22, 2025, Badr Airlines had operated the first passenger flight into Khartoum International Airport in two years, following painstaking repairs to the war-ravaged facility. The airport, a symbol of the city’s battered resilience, had only reopened after the army recaptured Khartoum from the RSF in March 2025. But the sense of progress was short-lived. The latest drone strikes forced authorities to postpone the airport’s reopening indefinitely, according to an airport official who spoke to AFP.
Sudan’s civil war erupted in April 2023, when the RSF and the military—once uneasy partners—turned on each other, unleashing a wave of violence that has swept across the country. The capital itself has changed hands, with the military retaking control from the RSF in March after months of brutal fighting. Yet, as the government attempts to restore key services and bring institutions back from their temporary refuge in Port Sudan, the city remains a shell of its former self. Power outages are frequent, infrastructure is shattered, and the threat of renewed violence hangs heavy in the air.
According to the World Health Organization, the war has already claimed at least 40,000 lives. The true toll may be even higher, given the chaos and the difficulty of accessing some of the hardest-hit regions. The displacement crisis is staggering: about 12 million people have been forced from their homes since the fighting began, and more than one million have returned to Khartoum over the past ten months, drawn by the hope of stability but confronted by devastation.
International organizations have sounded the alarm with increasing urgency. On October 23, 2025, the International Organization for Migration and other United Nations agencies issued a joint statement, calling for “urgent international attention on the crisis in Sudan, to address the immense suffering and growing dangers to the population.” Their demands were clear: an immediate cessation of hostilities, protection of civilians—especially children—and unhindered humanitarian access to all affected areas, including the presence of the UN throughout the country.
“What I witnessed in Darfur and elsewhere this week is a stark reminder of what is at stake: children facing hunger, disease and the collapse of essential services,” said Ted Chaiban, UNICEF’s deputy executive director, in a statement reported by several news outlets. “Entire communities are surviving in conditions that defy dignity.”
The humanitarian crisis in Sudan is now the world’s largest, with approximately 30 million people reliant on aid for survival. Nowhere is the suffering more acute than in the regions of Darfur and Kordofan, where fighting has intensified in recent months. Famine has been detected in many parts of these areas, and displacement is rampant. The provincial capital of El-Fasher in North Darfur has been under siege for over a year, the United Nations warns, with some 260,000 civilians trapped inside and cut off from regular supplies of food, water, and medicine.
The government’s attempts to restore a semblance of normalcy have been stymied by the persistent violence. While the recapture of Khartoum in March was touted as a turning point, the city’s battered infrastructure and the constant threat of RSF attacks have made recovery a distant dream. The airport’s brief reopening was supposed to signal a new chapter, but instead, it highlighted the fragility of progress in the face of relentless conflict.
Meanwhile, the fighting shows no signs of abating. Both the RSF and the military have remained largely silent about the latest drone attacks, as if silence could mask the scale of the suffering. The RSF, in particular, has intensified its campaign to pressure the military, using drone strikes as a tool to disrupt efforts at stabilization and to keep the conflict in the international spotlight.
For ordinary Sudanese, each day brings new uncertainty. The return of displaced people to Khartoum over the past year is a testament to the enduring hope that peace might one day return. But for now, those hopes are repeatedly dashed by the reality of war: shattered homes, empty shelves, and the ever-present threat of violence. Children, as UNICEF’s Chaiban emphasized, are among the most vulnerable—facing not only hunger and disease but the loss of any semblance of normal childhood.
The international community, for its part, is being urged to do more. Aid agencies stress that only a sustained, coordinated response can begin to address the scale of the crisis. Yet, with fighting ongoing and access to many regions restricted, delivering even basic assistance remains a monumental challenge.
Sudan’s tragedy is far from over. The drone attacks on Khartoum and its airport this week are just the latest chapter in a conflict that has upended millions of lives and pushed an entire nation to the brink. As the world’s attention flickers from crisis to crisis, the people of Sudan continue to endure unimaginable hardship, waiting for the day when the sounds of war are replaced by the rhythms of peace.